Atomic Wallet Gets Compromised with Attackers Draining More than $35M from Users

UTC by Steve Muchoki · 3 min read
Atomic Wallet Gets Compromised with Attackers Draining More than $35M from Users
Photo: Depositphotos

Atomic Wallet noted that less than 1 percent of its monthly active users were affected in the weekend’s attack.

The crypto community had a rather gloomy weekend after one of the top non-custodial digital asset storage Atomic Wallet was hacked and millions of dollars siphoned from several users’ accounts. According to the latest update from Atomic Wallet via Twitter, less than 1 percent of the company’s monthly active users have been affected. However, independent on-chain researcher ZachXBT noted that the number of assets stolen had surpassed $35 million as of Monday. Among the stolen digital assets were from several networks including Bitcoin, ETH, Tron, BSC, ADA, XRP, Polkadot, Cosmos, Algo, Avax, XLM, LTC, and Doge.

The Atomic Wallet team announced that it is conducting investigations into the attack and has already involved major exchanges to block the addresses used by the attackers. The attack is a huge blow to the crypto market that had nearly recovered from the FTX and Alameda Research implosion. Notably, the FTX downfall late last year initiated a huge migration en masse from centralized exchanges to non-custodial wallets like Atomic Wallet and Trust Wallet by Binance.

The crypto industry is also having to deal with the fact that hardware wallets have security issues that could lead to losses of users’ funds.

Last month, leading hardware wallet Ledger was slammed by the crypto community for working on software updates that could compromise users’ security. With the history of data bleaching on non-custodial wallets, crypto users who depend on these Web3 products are left with few choices to invest in the nascent industry.

Atomic Wallet and Its Security History

Moreover, Atomic Wallet has been in the crypto industry for years. Developed by Konstantin Gladych, a data science and blockchain veteran who also leads the Changelly project, Atomic Wallet has integrated dozens of blockchains. Atomic Wallet users can stake different digital assets including ETH, BNB, SOL, and ELGD, among others. However, the Atomic Wallet application recently removed the swap function that enabled users to seamlessly move through different chains.

Amid the changes, Least Authority Team unearthed scary security risks for users earlier last year.

“In addition, until the issues and suggestions outlined in the report have been sufficiently remediated and the Atomic Wallet has undergone subsequent security audits, we strongly recommend against the Atomic Wallet’s deployment and use,” the Least Authority Team noted.

The atomic wallet uses the AWC token for the governance of its ecosystem. The company pays up to 20 percent in APR on its AWC token, which significantly dropped in value following the attack. According to market data provided by Coinmarketcap, the AWC token traded around $0.1536 on Monday, down more than 97 percent from its ATH.

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